Fig. 1. Lookingsoutheast across Caledonian Bay, east coast of Canyon Fiord. The peaks inthe back- ground consist of dark , presumably corresponding to the Offley Island formation of Middle (Late Llandovery; Clinton) age. To theleft of the peak in thecentre may be seen a gap in the ridge. This gap indicates the position of steeply dipping graptolite shales (visible in Fig. 6 as a dark band) which maybelong to the Cape Tysonformation of Late Silurian (Tarannon-Wenlock) age. The low hills near the coast consist of sandstones and shales, which provisionally are referred to the Polaris Harbour formation of doubtfulLate Silurian (Ludlow) age. The “shoulder” or plateau remnantbetween the high peaks and the coast is clearly seen. The arrow indicates the localityshown in Fig. 7. May 1952. GEOLOGICALINVESTIGATIONS IN ELLESMEREISLAND, 1952 J. C. Troelsen*

R. LAUGEKOCH’S ideas on the age of the folded mountain system in north Greenland and Ellesmere Island have for the last thirty years been a stormDcentre in Scandinavian geology. It has been maintained by several geologists that Koch’s theory of a Caledonian age of thefolding was not supported by acceptable evidence, and as late as 1950 HansFrebold (1951, p. 42) statedthat: “Das Alterder Nordgronland-GrinnelLLand-Faltenzone ist noch ungeklart und neuerdings bekanntgewordene Tatsachen sprechen fur das Vorliegen jungerer Faltungen in diesem Raume” (“The age of the north Greenland-Grinnell Land zone of folding is notyet known, and recently published evidence suggests the presence of younger foldings within this area”). On the Danish Thule-Ellesmere Land Expedition in the spring of 1940 I attempted unsuccessfully to solve theproblem of the age of the mountain system in Ellesmere Island, though clear evidence was found of a gentle post- folding. Circumstantial evidence derived fromthe literature and from my field observations suggested, however, that the main folding of the mountain system took place some time between the Silurian and the Middle periods, possibly inLate Silurian and/or Middle to Late time (Troelsen, 1950a). Later, as a member of the Danish Pearyland Expedition, I was able to prove that a folding had taken place between Middle (Silurian fossils were found in the unfolded sequence but not within the belt of folding) and Late Carboniferous times in thenorth Greenland end of the mountain system (Troelsen, 1950b). InPeary Land there is thusa considerable time gap between the folded and the overlying unfolded rocks and, as the sequence of geological events has not necessarily been the same throughoutthe north Greenland-Ellesmere Island mountain system, further research in Ellesmere Island was needed. In 1940 I formed the impression that the key to the problem should be sought somewhere near Canyon Fiord, west Ellesmere Island, but I was unable to spend much time looking for it. When I heard that a weather station had been built in 1947 at Slidre Fiord, not far from Canyon Fiord, I decided to make another attempt at the mountain folding in Ellesmere Island, but it was not until March 1952 that I was ready to leave for the Arctic. The 1952 expedition was made possible in part by a grant from the Arctic Institute of North America, withfunds provided by the US. Government. When itbecame apparent that the budgetas originally planned was insufficient, the University of Copenhagen and the Danish Rask-Qrsted Foundation made “Curator, Mineralogisk-geologisk Institut, University of Copenhagen. 199 2 00 GF,OLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS IN ELLESMEREISLAND

Fig. 2. Sketch-map of west central EllesmereIsland, based on World AeronauticalChart No. 20, published June 1951. additional grants. The Defence Research Board in Ottawa lent a set of R.C.A.F. photographs of theCanyon Fiord region and, togetherwith the Arctic Institute, assisted me in planning details of the expedition. Permission to use the Eureka weather station as a base was granted by the Controller of the Meteorological Division, Canadian Department of Transport.Transpor- tation from Montreal to the Arctic and back was provided by the R.C.A.F., the U.S.A.F., and the U.S. Navy. I am indebted to all these institutions and agencies and to many individuals for help and advice.

Field work Previous expeditions to the Canyon Fiord region: the Second Norwegian Polar Expedition in the Fmm, 1898-1902; the Macmillan Crocker Land Expedi- tion, 1913-7; and the Danish Thule-Ellesmere Land Expedition, 1939-11,had travelled with sledges pulled by large dog teams. Because of the expense and difficulties involved in securing and transportinga complete dog team and theirfood to Ellesmere Island, I had planned to use alight Swedish pulka drawnby one ortwo dogs. Unfortunately,on my arrival in northwest Greenland in April 1952 Ifound that an outbreak of dog disease made it impossible to obtain any dogs there, and an offer to lend me some from the Eurekaweather station had to be declined as they werenot trained for GEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS IN ELLESMERE ISLAND 201

Fig. 3. The second startfrom Eureka weatherstation. May 1952. sledging. For reasons beyond the control of the weather station no mechanical transportation was available at the time. As it was now too late to abandon or postpone the expedition, I therefore decided to pull the pulkn myself. OnApril 19 I arrived by air at Eurekaweather station, on the north coast of Slidre Fiord, and set out the following day for Canyon Fiord. The route lay through Slidre Fiord and across the low plain northwest of Sawtooth Range.l As the loadwas very heavy, relaying had to be resorted to, and it soon became apparent that the most advantageous course would be to cache as much food and kerosene as possible on the west coast of Canyon Fiord and then to return to the weather station for additional supplies. On May 1 I was back at the base, andleft again for Canyon Fiord on May 4. As thegoing onthe plain andalong theriver beds was already deteriorating because of evaporation of the snow on the gravel banks, I decided to travel on the sea ice northaround Fosheim Peninsula. It took five days to reachthe cache in Canyon Fiord and another two days to Caledonian Bay' on the east coast of the fiord. A careful study of stereoscopic pairs of air photographs had indicated that two areas were of special interest: at Caledonian Bay and to the southwest of 1This is the name in local use. It has not as yet been adopted by the Canadian Board on Geographical Names. 'This name has not as yet been adopted by the Canadian Board on Geographical Names. 202 GEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS IN ELLESMEREISLAND the head of Canyon Fi0rd.l As it turned out, it was most fortunate that the first area held the answers to most of the problems with which I was concerned. Special permission had been obtained to shoot a small number of Arctic hares: as I had been asked to make a collection for a Danish zoologist. Natur- ally I wanted to kill the hares at a time and place where their meat would be of most use, so I had planned to take them on the east coast of Canyon Fiord. Although former travellers had found Canyon Fiord to be teeming with Arctic hares, I did not see a single one, and during my stay here I subsisted on hard- tack and dried codfish, supplemented by some military K-rations. By strict rationing the stay in Caledonian Bay was extended to ten days, during which time themore important problems concerningthe mountain foldingwere solved. The plans for an examination of the southern part of Canyon Fiord couldthus be abandoned without seriously affecting the scientific program. The last bit of food was eatenbefore I revisited my cache (orwhat remained of it)on the west coast of the fiord. Within half an hour, five hares had been killed in a valley nearby and manymore were seen. After collecting some Mesozoic and fossils at a point a few miles south of the cache I started back towards the weather station with a full load of fossils and rock samples. By the time I reached the mouth of Canyon Fiord, the only food left was some carcasses of Arctic hares. As it turnedout to be a rathertrying experience to do hard work on astraight diet of hare meat, I temporarily abandoned camp and sledge and walked overland to the weather station. The 33-mile trip seemed rather a long one, but on the morning of May 27 I reached my goal. After a few days spent in resting and eating, I carried a food depot to the north coast of Fosheim Peninsula. Later, on June 7, with my rucksack once more filled with food, I walked overland to the campsite at the mouth of CanyonFiord. The rivers innortheastern Fosheim Peninsula werenow in flood. Some of the largest and swiftest streams had a coating of slippery ice on the bottom, while others flowed in beds of deep slush. In all, no less than thirty-six hours were spent in covering the distance of 35 miles. On the sea ice the snow had now given way to shallow pools of melt- water, and leads were opening everywhere. The largest leads were at the mouths of the main rivers and couldonly be crossed afterthey had been followed seawards for several miles. In anumber of places patches of hummocky ice, probably old floe ice, cut by a maze of deep channels and ponds, had to be crossed. Gradually the bottom of the pulka wore out and, when the inside cross- pieces began to drag on the ice, progress became nearly impossible. (In fairness to the manufacturer it should be mentioned that by far the greater part of this 1A plotting grid engravedon plexiglass wasused for making rough estimates'of distancesand directions. The grid did not make any allowance for the variationof the angle ofdepression of individual hotographs and, in this region, the relief ofthe moun- tainous areas was much too great Por the proper application of the perspective grid method, but the grid was nevertheless useful for rapid work. 2EllesmereIsland is a game preserve. GEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS IN ELLESMEREISLAND 203

Fig. 4. The sea ice to the north of Fosheim Peninsula in mid June. The north coast of Greely Fiord may be seen in the background.

Fig. 5. The bottom of the pulka after some 350 miles of sledging. June 1952. 2 04 GEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONSELLESMERE IN ISLAND

Photo: R.C.A.F. Fig. 6. Looking east across Caledonian Bay. The dotted line indicates thecontact betweeli the MiddleCarboniferous inthe foreground and thestrongly folded Lower Paleozoic sediments. The Carboniferousrocks were disturbed by warping and weak folding in Late Mesozoic-Cenozoic time. The arrow indicates the locality shown in Fig. 7.

wearoccurred during the last few days of travelling across rough,melting ice). Some 17 miles from the weather station I abandoned the sledge on the shore and walked back to the station, carrying only my notebooks, maps, and instruments. I was touched to find that the personnel at the basehad left a food cache at the mouth of Slidre Fiord to lighten my return journey. As my watch had stopped during a period of foggy and cloudy weather, 1 had lost track of time. On my return to the weather station I learned that I was two days overdue (it was now June 18) and that the R.C.A.F. had been requested to search for me. Fortunatelywe succeeded in contacting them before the search plane had taken off. Towards the end of June the shore lead had opened so much that a canoe couldreach the abandoned sledge. A wolf had torna hole in the sledge cover and stolenthe hare skulls, but all theother collections were brought back safely. GEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS IN ELLESMEREISLAND 20s

Fig. 7. In a valley runnin northwest to the head of Caledonian Bay. The steeply dipping graptolite shales in theforeground are believed to correspond tothe Late Silurian (Tarannon-Wenlock) Cape Tyson formation. Inthe background there is a dip slope developed onthe upper surface of a dark limestone, which presumablycorresponds to the Middle Silurian (LateLlandovery; Clinton) Offley Island formation. May 1952..

The remainder of the summer was spent in the vicinity of the weather station,making geological, botanical, and zoologicalcollections. On August 18 I left Eureka weather station.

Scientificresults Geology The ridgeimmediately north of Caledonian Bay, on the east coast of CanyonFiord, mainly consists of alarge anticline, which is built up of unfossiliferous sandstones, slates, , chert beds, and chert conglomer- ates. The age of thissequence is unknownbut may conceivably be Late Precambrian. South of Caledonian Bay there is a large syncline (Figs. 1 and 6), which seems to be separated from the large anticline by a major fault. The syncline is composed of fossiliferous limestones, shales, and sandstones(Fig. 7). On 206 GEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS IN ELLESMERE ISLAND

the basis of lithological similarities and field identifications offossils these beds have tentativelybeen assigned to thefollowing formations, which are knownfrom the unfolded sequence in northGreenland (Koch, 1929, pp. 23842): The Offley Island formation, of Middle Silurian (Late Llandovery; Clinton) age. The Cape Tyson formation, of LateSilurian (Tarannon-Wenlock) age. The Polaris Harbour formation, of doubtful Late Silurian (Ludlow) age. Until the study of the collections has been completed this comparison cannot profitably be carried any further, but it is certain that Silurian fossils occur in the syncline. Although the folding of the Lower Paleozoicstrata around Caledonian Bay has been rather intensive, no metamorphic rocks above the rank of slate have been found. Neither were any intrusive rocks 0bserved.l Similar condi- tions areknown from northern Ellesmere Island (Troelsen, 1950a). There are therefore good reasons for classifying those parts of the folded mountains which have been examined as belonging to a miogeosyncline. Around Caledonian Bay, Middle Carboniferous sandstones and limestones (with Fusulina and Fusulinella) are found resting upon (1) the folded unfos- siliferous sedimentary strata north of thebay and (2) the folded Silurian sedimentarystrata south of thebay (Figs. 1and 8). The low island inthe bay also consists of Carboniferous rocks. It was definitely provedthat the contact between the Carboniferous and the older rocks is an irregular erosion surface overlain by a coarse conglomerate of water-worn pebbles. 1River gravels, moraines, and the Carboniferous basal conglomerate were also searched unsuccessfully for intrusives and highlymetamorph,osed rocks.

Fig. 8. Geologicalsketch-map of Caledonian Bay. GEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS IN ELLESMERE ISLAND 207

Fig. 9. Looking northtowards East Cape. Dark Permian limestones (dipping away from the observer) have been thrust on to of light-coloured sandstones of Permianor Carboniferousage (dipping towards the o!server). The thrustingis an effect of the Late Mesozoic or Cenozoic orogeny. May 1952.

The Carboniferous rocks truncate the older, folded rocks. At one place north of Caledonian Bay, a small erosional valley that parallels the trend of the old anticline was found to have been filled with Carboniferous sandstone. I got the impression that by Carboniferous time a bay already existed in the Caledonian Bay area (in this case, the assumed major fault wasprobably formedbefore Carboniferous time). The bay was filled with Carboniferous sediments, andlater the whole structure was slightly warped. In compara- tivelyrecent geological time erosional forces have re-excavated thebay to form what is now Caledonian Bay and the large valley behind it. North of Caledonian Bay the erosion has been so thorough that only small patches of the Carboniferous strata have been left here and there on the hill sides. For the first time in Ellesmere Island we thus have positive, irrefutable evidence of a post-Silurian (or possibly Late Silurian) but pre-MiddleCar- boniferous folding. This,together with what is nowknown about Peary Land(Troelsen, 1950b), proves the essential correctness of LaugeKoch’s theory as to the age of the folding. 208 GEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONSELLESMERE IN ISLAND

Fig. 10. Horizontal sandstone andclay with coal beds near thetop of the cliff, central Fosheim Peninsula. These strata seem to have been deposited afterthe cessation of the Late Mesozoic-Cenozoic orogeny. April 19SZ.

The only Mesozoic deposit hitherto known with certainty fromEllesmere Island has been the Triassic Blaa (Blue)Mountain formation. This summer, at least oneadditional stratigraphic horizon was foundin that region: on the plains around Slidre Fiord a sandstone bed, containing Aucella (=Buchia), is overlain by some 500 feet of soft shales, the lower part of which also contains Aucella, while higher in the shales there are (as yet unidentified) ammonites and belemnoids. The occurrence of Aucella proves the LateJurassic-Early age of at least part of the sequence. Another belemnoid-carrying stratum was discovered in northeastern Fosheim Peninsula. Parts of the skeleton of a large plesiosaurus (a marine reptile) were found in the shale formation about 2 miles from the weather station. Although the bones had been brokeninto innumerable fragments, it is hopedthat it will be possible to reconstruct at least some of the limbs. Our knowledge of the geologicalconditions in Ellesmere Island during the Middle Carboniferous, Permian, and Mesozoic times is too scattered and incomplete to permit any definite conclusions as to the extent and nature of GEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS IN ELLESMERE ISLAND 2 09 the basins in whichthe sedimentary rocks were deposited. It is certain, though, that these sedimentary rocks have been disturbed by a gentle folding (i.e., the second folding that has affected the area), which, however, is older thanthe Cenozoic (or Upper (?) Cretaceous) coal beds of the region. One of these coal deposits was discovered in central Fosheim Peninsula, some 20 miles due east of the weather station (Fig. 10). It was evident thatthe whole region hadbeen covered by glacier ice during Pleistocene time, and evidence was found1 that at onetime this ice cover was continuous and that it had its centre, or centres, in eastern Ellesmere Island. When the ice receded, the sea advanced across what is now the low plain of Fosheim Peninsula, as shown by numerous finds of shells. At Slidre Fiord the highest marinebeach is nowabout 46.5 feet(measured by hand level) above sealevel. The thick deposits of glacial till that cover the foothills of SawtoothRange contain numerousfragments of shells alongtheir contact withthe raisedsea bed of the plain. This, besides other evidence, indicates a relatively late advance of the glaciers, which apparently have ploughed up the old sea bed. Botany A collection of dried mosses and flowering plants was made during my stay at Eureka weather station. These plants are now being examined at the National Museum of Canada, but it is expected that the mosses will eventually be studied by Mr.Kjeld Holmen, of the Botanical Institute, University of Copenhagen. In addition collections of seeds of the Arctic poppy were made for Professor C. A. J@rgensen, of the Royal College of Agriculture in Copen- hagen, who is working on the cytology and morphologyof these plants, and of seeds of various grasses and cruciferous plants for cytological examination by Mr.Kjeld Holmen. Zoology Berlese funnel samples of the microfauna were processed for Dr. Marie Hammer (see Arctic, Vol.. 2 ( 1949) p. 124), and a number of mosquitoes and other insects were brought back for Mr. Chr. Vibe of the Zoological Museum, University of Copenhagen. As the area has rarely been visited a list of the wildlife observed may be of interest: Muskox: Muskoxen are numerouson the plain of Fosheim Peninsula, and although their number is not known there appear to be as many as the land can support. It was apparent that the cows did not havecalves every year. Caribou: a tuft of white caribou hair, still attached to a bit of skin, was found on the ice in central Canyon Fiord. Arctic hare: very abundant in certain places, particularly in the foothills of the lower mountain ranges. Lemming: not much in evidence in the spring of 19.52. 10n Stor Island in Eureka Sound, visited late in August. 210 GEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS IN ELLESMERE ISLAND

Polar bear: no signs of bears were seen. Wolf: wolves and fresh wolf trackswere occasionally seen. The wolves were fearless and on a few occasions even visited my camp. Arctic fox: a small number were seen. Like the wolves, the foxes had no fear of man. Weasel: about June 10, a weasel (in brown summer coat) was seen in Canyon Fiord. Seals: frequently observed on the sea ice in Canyon Fiord, Greely Fiord, and Eureka Sound. Birds: some of the birds of the region were unknown to me, and a complete list cannot be given. It may be mentioned however, that at the end of June a black raven was seen at the mouth of Slidre Fiord. The raven seems to be very rare in the region.

References Frebold,Hans. 1951. ‘Geologiedes Barentsschelfes’. Abhundl.d. deutsch. Akad.d. Wiss. Berlin, K1. f. Math. u. allgem. Naturwiss. (1950), No. 5, 151 pp. Koch,Lauge. 1929. ‘Stratigraphy of Greenland’. Medd. om. Gren. Vol. 73, Pt. 2, pp. 205-320. Troelsen, J. C. 1950a. ‘Contributions tothe geology of northwestGreenland, Ellesmere Islandand Axel Heiberg Island’. Medd. om Gr@. Vol. 149, Pt. 7,86 pp. Troelsen, J. C.195Ob. “Geology” in “A preliminary ‘account of the Danish Pearyland Expedition, 1948-9” by P. C. Winther and others. Arctic, Vol. 3, pp. 6-8.